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Parenting Plans: The First Year of Life

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Unfortunately, too little research has been conducted regarding children’s responses to various schedules to have an empirical idea about what types of schedules work for which kinds of children and families. This means that parents are still largely on their own in setting up a schedule – using common sense and compassion about what the schedule is like for your children is still the best guidelines. However, experts in the field were gathered by the state  to make recommendations about optimal schedules based on what we know about the “average” child’s capacity to manage time away from the primary caretaker(s) and still feel secure, and to handle multiple transitions. Click here for a great article on parenting plans.   

The First Year of Life

In the first year of life, primary tasks for the infant include stabilizing physical routines of feeding and sleeping, and learning to trust the world through predictable contact that is nurturing and responsive to needs for feeding, diapering, and comforting on demand. Most children develop a primary attachment to the person who is responsible for their care, but they are capable of developing attachment to a second or third caretaker as well. Emphasis on predictability and familiarity facilitate healthy development for infants.

Most experts agree that for children under one year of age, the time spent with a “non-primary” parent should be consistent, predictable, and regular. Anywhere from daily to as many times a week as possible for short time periods is useful. Overnights are not recommended, and separations from a primary caretaker should be kept to eight hours or less. The easier the child’s temperament, and the more comfortable the parents are with the child in either parent’s care, the more frequent the baby’s time with the second parent can be without causing the child undue stress.

Having a primary home with 2-3 hour visits sprinkled throughout the week optimizes both parents’ opportunities to learn about who their baby is and what he or she needs. For some additional information on parenting plans, click here.  

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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Some Common Shared Parenting Schedules

Monday, July 12th, 2010

For parents who want to share their children’s time more equally, there are many possible schedules. Some common ones are:

  • every other week,
  • every two weeks,
  • Monday morning through Thursday morning and Thursday afternoon through Monday morning,
  • Wednesday morning through Saturday morning and Saturday morning through Wednesday morning,
  • September through June and summers for parents who live in different states.

Every schedule has different pluses and minuses associated with it. Which schedule works for your family will depend on how close you live to the other parent, your work schedules, ages of your children, the children’s individual temperaments, school demands, and their hobbies and activities. The schedule you choose should depend on how important it is for the children to be in the same house during weekdays (i.e., school nights) and how well your children adapt to the transition between homes.  Can your children organize their school work when they make transitions between homes during the school week? If they have religious, sports, music, or other training on a regular basis, then maintaining the consistency of such classes is important. Children shouldn’t have to miss activities on a regular basis because they have to be at the other parent’s house. For a great article on shared parenting, click here.  

How children go to school and return home also will affect your schedule. Do they need to be driven, can they switch busses, are they in a carpool?

Do your children have a maximum amount of time they tolerate being away from either of you?  The length of time may differ from their primary caretaker and their secondary, if that is how your family has been arranged in the past. All of these factors are considerations in determining the best parenting schedules.

Are There Alternatives to the Typical Shared Parenting Plans?

Some less common, but important, variations on schedules also deserve mention. For reasons that will become obvious in the descriptions below, these arrangements are harder to maintain than more common ones, and they often require greater cooperation and sacrifice on both parents’ parts. However, when values or circumstances dictate creative solutions, these are worth considering.

Parents who can successfully do it report great satisfaction with “nesting”. In this arrangement, the children stay in one place, and the parents move out of the home and into an apartment or family member’s home. Sometimes the parents share one other dwelling, other times they can afford to rent or own two different ones. Sometimes they each return to a parent’s or friend’s home as their secondary residence. Parents then move in and out of the family home according to the dictates of schedules that work best for them. Click here for an article on nesting.  

Sometimes parents live far away from one another. In these situations, children may spend school years with one parent, and longer holiday periods, vacations, and summers with the other parent.

When parents live near each other, they may choose to alternate the child’s primary residence every other year. The children do not spend much time living between homes, but they do visit the other parent regularly. However, each parent gets to be the primary parent some of the time, smoothing over the sense of one parent being the less central figure. This schedule, though often proposed, is counter to children’s best interests in most situations. This arrangement erodes consistency in discipline across phases of life, as well as the child’ sense of belonging in a home. 

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

 

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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Common Living Arrangements

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

The most common arrangement today is still for the children to live primarily with one parent and spend time with the other. How families spell out specific arrangements are as varied as families themselves. One common form is for the children to live with Mom, and spend time with Dad every other weekend and an evening per week for dinner. Sometimes the weekend ends on Sunday, and other times the children stay until Monday morning when they are dropped off at school. Variations on the theme include a cycle in which the child spends one overnight during one week, and a four day weekend (or a three day weekend) the following week. Click here for an article on living arrangements after divorce.  

Many divorce orders provide for “liberal and reasonable” access, without specification of a schedule.  This works out fine when parents communicate effectively and are flexible with one another.  This does not work when parents are unable cooperate, yet they enter into an agreement for “reasonable and liberal visitation” in order to gloss over problems in favor of expediting the divorce. In order to bring predictability and order into your lives, and your children’s, you should specify a schedule in your divorce agreement. Having a schedule in place need not discourage both of you from being flexible about rescheduling when either parent requests modifications. For an article on co-parenting after divorce, click here.  

All kinds of details can be written into an agreement to forestall problems particular to your family. For example, if you feel that your time with the kids is often reduced when they are sick, which occurs particularly with young children, you can write into the agreement that if a child is sick and has to miss a visitation, then compensatory time will be scheduled if it is not too disruptive to the child’s own schedule. Similarly, if your spouse hires a babysitter to watch the children when you would normally be available, you can specify that the other parent gets first right of refusal for extra time with the children. This is especially important to do when the child sees her parent fairly infrequently. By the same token, using your spouse’s desire to be involved with the children to call upon him/her every time you have some small need is taking advantage of the situation. You want him or her to be available for you without feeling imposed upon, and certainly the reverse would be true.  The idea behind “right of first refusal for babysitting” is that the spouses support each other, and that the children maximize the amount of time with each parent, and minimize the amount of time with babysitters. In the event such a provision becomes manipulative rather than supportive, such as when it is used to influence how  the other parent spends free time, it should be discontinued immediately.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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Developing a Schedule for Living Arrangements

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

The decision about with whom children will reside primarily may be a stressful one and can add to the ongoing conflicts between spouses. Therefore, you may be tempted to defer to your children to avoid the conflict and decision making. It is true that for older children (usually ten years or older), the court will consider where your child wants to live. This does not mean that you should ask your child with whom he or she wants to live. It is not uncommon for children to tell both parents that they wish to live with them; sometimes they change their minds based on whomever they are speaking to at that very moment. This may be a tactic to make each parent feel good, or the child may genuinely change his mind when with each parent. Children may choose the parent that they feel the most sorry for, scared of, or who has the least restrictive household rules. Your child is worried enough about the divorce situation without your adding to his concerns by asking him to choose between two parents. Click here for an article on living arrangements after divorce.  

If a child is given this decision, you run the risk of invoking guilt toward the parent that was not chosen. In addition, the parent not chosen could punish the child by showing displeasure.  Down the road, your children may become angry with you for passing this responsibility on to them, when it is one decision they wish you had made.

However, children often do have a preference, based more on their own needs for familiarity within their home and neighborhood than on a choice of one parent over another. They want to be near their friends, with the parent who has the best computer, with the parent who has more time to spend, or the parent whose home is most conducive to sleep overs with friends. Children can tell you where they’d like to live instead of with whom and  indicates that they want to be heard about WHAT matters to them, not who. Having their opinions considered makes them feel included, valued, and recognized as persons with independent needs.

Talk to your children along with your former spouse, and encourage them to express their preferences for schedule rather than place, and be clear that the adults will make the final decisions. For more on living arrangements after divorce, click here.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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Common Reactions of Young Children to Divorce

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Preschoolers indicate increased fears of abandonment. They regress to earlier stages of development; for example, they may begin soiling their pants or wetting their bed again if they had mastered that behavior a short time before. Your child who loved day care now clings to your leg, wailing piteously about your leaving. She may be more cranky. Or she may seem not to have noticed, her denial working perfectly for her. This can scare parents, but it will not hurt your child to take more time before dealing with the event. Denial is wonderfully undervalued in our culture: it can give us the time we need to martial our resources, allowing us to reach the next step. Young children take longer to cognitively and emotionally process complex relationships and events. Click here for more information on children’s reactions to divorce.  

Early school age children (6-8 years) are more likely to express their reactions in sadness. They are likely to mourn through yearning, like Madame Butterfly waiting at the window to see her love return to her. Their fears are ones of deprivation rather than abandonment; will there be enough time, attention, and money for them to live as they always did? Symptoms are manifested in academic difficulties and concentration problems. Sleep and eating disturbances are common, as are psychosomatic complaints – headaches, stomach aches, bumps and bruises.

Your middle school child (9-12 years) is more likely to get angry than his younger siblings. This age is prone to loyalty conflicts, since friendships and teammates are just beginning to fully take over their imaginations and dominate their social world. This is the age most likely to become involved by their parents in the adults’ conflict, signing up for one side or the other, but eager to be on a team and to have a common threat to rally against. Due to their sensitivity in this arena, and to their greater abilities than their younger siblings to understand what is going on between the adults, they are used by parents to deliver messages, spy, or just report back. Click here for an article on what children need from you during your divorce  

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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What if Your Children Ask You Personal Questions?

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

What if your children ask you personal questions…whose fault is it? Did someone have an affair? Do you hate Daddy now?  You must use your discretion to answer the questions in language and detail they can understand given their age. Do not lie; it will come back to haunt you. Do not use blaming language. Some examples may provide guidance:

Question: Whose fault is the divorce?

Parent to Six Year Old Child: Divorce happens because two people can’t work things out. Mommy and Daddy are each angry about different things, and it is no one’s fault.

Parent to Eight Year Old Child: When adults cannot get along and they decide to split up, everyone is angry and hurt because it is a very hard thing to do. Sometimes whose fault it is doesn’t matter; it is more important what we do in the future to try and stay friends.

Parent to Eleven Year Old Child: Getting a divorce isn’t about fault. It is true, as you know, that Daddy has a new girlfriend and that I am hurt about that. He shouldn’t have lied to us, but he is still a very loving Daddy. If you are upset with him about that, you should talk to him about it. Let him explain what he felt to you. It wasn’t right, but people make mistakes and we can still be friends if he is honest with us from now on. 

Note that as your children get older, your answers can be more complex and more open. But do not give them information they didn’t already have, and do not tell them more than they want to hear. In the example above, the child already knew Daddy had moved in with a new woman. Click here for an article on questions children typically ask during divorce.

Initially, your children may not appear to understand what is happening, or may fail to ask the questions that you would expect from them.  This is because they don’t want the separation to occur, and it may take time for them to accept even the smallest piece of information from you.  Give your children a number of opportunities in the next few days and weeks to ask you questions about what is happening to the family. Encourage them to ask questions about what they fear most. You must not expect your children to understand the reasons and feelings why you separated, or to talk about their feelings in the same way as adults talk about their feelings.  Children usually show their feelings through their behavior, which may change considerably at home, and at school, in the months after separation. Click here for an article on some common behavioral changes in children during divorce.    

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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Preparing Myself and My Children

Monday, April 12th, 2010

The family that your children have known is about to undergo tremendous change.  Divorce research has shown that children are rarely informed about their parents’ pending separation and divorce prior to its occurrence. The younger the children, the less chance that they were told in advance about the divorce.

Parents’ reasons for not informing their children are well intentioned. They are anxious and afraid themselves, and they have difficulty figuring out when and what to say.  Some parents fear burdening their children if they say too much. Others are concerned that their children won’t understand the reasons, and that the information will add to their hurt unnecessarily. Sometimes parents wait until the time seems right, and then events gather momentum, and the opportunity has slipped away. All of these reasons that parents wait to tell their children are understandable, but they are not helpful. Your children need to know. In fact, it will make the divorce more predictable to them, which will facilitate their healthy adaptation. Click here for an article on preparing children for divorce.

How Do We Tell the Children?

The first step in informing your children about the separation and divorce is for you and your spouse to sit down and talk about it by yourselves. Decide if you are definite about separating; it is not helpful for your children to hear that you might do this. Once you have reached a decision, make an agreement about where the children will live and what kind of parenting plan your spouse and you will implement, at least on a temporary basis. You are then ready to speak to the children about your decisions.

A family meeting is a good forum to tell your children about your decisions. There are several advantages for your children if both of you can tell them together of your plans.  Children will see that you intend to cooperate and work together as parents.  It gives the messages that although this is a painful turn of events, we will deal with it together. Also, we can talk about it. The invitation exists to talk about undesirable subjects. By logical extension, feelings and actions of all kinds are acceptable fodder for discussion. Most of all, your actions show the children that you, as parents, are in charge and will continue to care together for them.

The first thing to tell the children is that you will be divorcing. You may want to say: “We have been unhappy for a long time because we fight so much.  We have tried very hard to get along better and to work things out, but we have decided it is necessary to live apart. It is our best chance of preserving our friendship. We have decided to separate. We have decided that Mom/Dad will move out.” Click here for more information about telling your children about divorce.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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When Fear of Losing Clouds Your Judgment

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Marvin recognized that he was being inflammatory. Every time he entered the therapy office with his wife, he would begin by saying, “I don’t want to be here and work on this, I just want to hurt her for her infidelity to me. I want her to pay for all the pain she has caused me. And I know just what to say that will make her crazy when we are close to settling our problems. I know that’s not productive, but I can’t help myself. Why should I make her life any happier? I am afraid she’ll just find someone new and I’ll be stuck with all the heartache.” Click here to read five keys to overcoming fear.

Marvin didn’t realize how much he was losing until the divorce process got too far underway to turn back. Many times during this middle phase of divorce the leaver is struck with how much she or he is losing, having focused previously only on what would be gained by divorce. By the time Marvin’s wife began to reconsider whether or not she wanted the divorce, Marvin had been so hurtful toward her that she no longer considered reconciliation an option.  Whether you are the leaver or the left, the amount of  loss in divorce becomes tangible – changes in residence, neighborhood, friends, family, economics, routines, traditions, identity (being known as “so and so’s spouse”), dreams, a future that is predictable in some respects. The post divorce realities fill one with a sense of dread, of fears that all humans experience – of being lonely, not having enough money, making decisions without input, dating, being single in a world too often oriented to couples and two parent families.

Couples who go to trial are more likely to experience multiple losses and the fears that accompany them. Yet it is these fears that often underlie the interactions that lead couples down the path toward a legal battle. Mothers fight to have their children stay only in one home during all school days, not only out of concern for the child, but because the house is so quiet without them that it engenders panic about not knowing exactly what her child is doing. They experience the emptiness of missing the bedtime story and the predictable fight to turn out the light. Fathers fight to have more weekend time, even when their children say they need the time with their friends, because the feeling that their parental role has slipped away prevents them from giving in on this point. For these fathers, the last thing they wanted was to be a Dad whose child doesn’t want to be with him, but they can’t find another solution without fear of losing their chance to affect their child’s development in a significant way.

These fears can result in failure to find an arrangement with which everyone can live comfortably. Instead, you stick stubbornly to your ground, making up excuse after excuse not to reach an acceptable resolution. Click here for an entire website about dealing with fear  

Be honest with yourself about your fears, write them down, and then face them. Walk through the legal walls you have been hiding behind. Your judgment will suddenly improve, and you’ll recall what it feels like to see the first ray of sun after a summer storm.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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My Spouse’s View of Me Doesn’t Fit With My Own Perceptions

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Nothing is more frustrating than having your ex go all over town saying things about you that you know not to be true. Worse, they are often things that are the opposite of how you view yourself.  Mike’s wife viewed every effort  he made to be involved in  his son’s life as controlling. So when he wanted to come to every tennis match, she told their son that he just wanted to use the games as a way to see her, and that he wanted the boy to win games for his own gratification. Mike was furious because he wound up fighting with his son every time he wanted to attend his matches. He wanted his boy to win, but that’s not why he loved being at the games. He felt that there was so little he could share day-to-day with Tommy, since he didn’t live with him anymore, and the games gave him something to talk about and a way to show his desire to be steadfast in the boy’s life. For an interesting discussion about spouses spreading rumors, click here.  

People often get caught up in going to trial to prove that their spouse’s view of themselves is wrong. This is a losing proposition, because you can’t change someone’s mind just because you want to; that person has to want to be open to a new interpretation. Often he or she is not. The court process is not going to change anyone’s opinion either. People who reach trial often say the exact same things about each other, using words like controlling, nasty, and lying. Some people diagnose each other, giving their spouse psychological labels that they only partially understand: borderline, antisocial, sex addicted, or narcissistic. Often someone is accused of being controlling and intimidating, and the other spouse is labeled as inconsistent and emotionally unstable. You can easily see how these two personality styles could influence the other, bringing out the worst. 

In research (Pruett, 1998), every couple interviewed that reported at least some conflict in their divorce said that their spouse used the legal system to get back at them in some way, while they never used the system to get back at their spouse.  Usually there is some kernel of objective truth in how spouses describe each other.  Maybe he is more forceful than her, or she does get weepy easily. But the extent to which the trait is ascribed is blown out of proportion, as much a product of the relationship as either person. For some tips for communicating with your spouse when things get negative, click here.

In any case, you cannot change someone’s negative view of you by fighting about it. You can only try and change that view by changing your own behavior. Refuse to engage at that level. Even so, understand that they may never see you the way you see yourself. It is important not to accept your spouse’s view of you, but to ask yourself if others see you similarly. Maybe even ask people close to you. Perhaps you can find the kernel of truth in your ex’s view, and use the divorce as an opportunity to better yourself in a way that will help you in your next relationship, with other people in general, or with your sense of self.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com 

(C) 2008  Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.

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New York Times Explores No-Fault Divorce

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Today,  marriage and family therapist Ruth Bettelheim wrote a terrific Op-Ed piece for the New York Times exploring the effects of 40 years of no-fault divorce in our country.

She explains: “In an adversarial custody battle, no one wins, but children are the biggest losers of all. Intelligent legislation could promote the one thing that children of divorce need most: peace between their parents.”

Peace between divorcing parents is the goal of Peace Talks Mediation Services and the theme of our second book, “Making Divorce Work.” Click here to read this excellent article.

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